Drinking to keep from heaving.

I'm not as young as I used to be, and I don't bounce back like I used to.  I'm learning this now, as my organs are actually aching after a week's drinking binge from the latest heartache.  This one is a doozy.  But it's forced me to think about things, my goals and ambitions and just what the hell I'm doing, and it's forced me to get some things done.  I finished editing four stories this past weekend.  Good job, me.  I didn't want to.  I wanted to sit around and feel lonely and upset and watch Law & Order and sip on yet another glass of wine.  And I did do that for a while, until I got bored with Law & Order (did they change the show's writers, or something??) and I talked to some friends, one in particular, that wondering just why WHY I'm not moving forward.  Who's holding you back?  You?  YOU?
Yes, me.
So I'm working on changing that, and it's making me feel a little bit better about my situation.  I mean, not really, at all, but it's making me think of something else, and that's what I really need.
Four stories, down.  Ready for submission.  I sent one story off yesterday to a small, online literary journal, The Meadowland Review. 
I finished reading a collection of short stories by Lee Smith and that made my heart feel better in two ways.  One, I love Lee Smith.  I hope to meet her one day.  I have no idea how that would happen, but that would be the best thing I can imagine.  I wish she was still teaching writing classes.  How great would that be??  Ok, ok, I need to stop wishing for what can't happen.  Two, I noticed some discrepancies in her stories.  Like, a character has brown eyes then a few page later he has these gorgeous blue eyes.  She also did some fun experimenting with her stories and not all of them worked.  I thought, well, if Lee can do it, it's ok.  It happens to everyone.  Not everything is the most amazing thing ever....isn't that what they always say?
I also spent Saturday night hanging out with my only writing friend in Charlotte.  (I really need to meet some people, but I'm terrified of putting myself out there.)  We drank some beers at this kitschy pseudo-redneck bar and talked about our writing goals.  She is considering going to writing school.  She's working on a screenplay.  She already has someone interested in buying her screenplay (yes, that was a dagger for me).  We agreed to meet up some time and talk more about writing and to workshop our stuff.  I hope that we actually do because I need something like that.
In other news, I started on a novel by T.R. Pearson, Off for the Sweet Hereafter.  I'm planning on starting Wallace Stegner's On Teaching and Writing Fiction.  I read a little bit of Stegner's book in grad school, but it will be good to focus on it intently and apply it to my writing life now that I have some sort of direction. 
Ok, no more drinking.  Time for working.